Neo-pro Luxembourger takes second pro win as time gap gives German victory

Bob Jungels (RadioShack-Leopard) took a victory for the home nation in the final stage of Skoda Tour de Luxembourg, between Mersch and Luxembourg, as the peloton split on the steep finishing straight. The 20-year-old outsprinted German Paul Martens (Blanco) in the dash for the line, with Jungels’ RadioShack-Leopard teammate Jan Bakelandts in third, as the trio pulled clear of the rest of the bunch.

“We saw yesterday that Jan [Bakalants] and I were the strongest on the climbs,” said Jungles. “Today I had Danilo [Hondo] at my side. On the second to last lap I told Jan to do the beginning of the climb fast and then there was a part where it was more flat and I was with Hondo. I attacked and passed the others, going full gas on the last lap alone. That last lap was really hard. I put the big chain ring on and went as hard as I could before the climb.

“At 50m to go I saw Martens on my wheel,” he added. “I tried to accelerate away but I couldn’t. I missed the overall by three seconds. We tried everything but Blanco was really strong. I think we showed great team effort here in Luxembourg and we can be really happy with winning three stages in five days.”

The seven second gap to yellow jersey Jonathan Hivert (Sojasun) meant that Martens leapfrogged the Frenchman to take the overall race victory. Jungels was adjudged to have received an illegal handsling on the approach to the finish, however, and received a ten second time penalty, meaning that the Luxembourg rider missed out on the overall podium.

“In the second to last lap Hondo pulled for me to make an attack and I was close to his left side,” Jungles protested. “When he dropped off, he took his right hand to motion for me to go and I took off but I didn’t take his hand.”

A hard and hilly parcours sees a fast and aggressive race

After a very fast opening hour to 143.6km the stage, in which the peloton covered 46.5km, Moreno Hofland (Blanco), Perrig Quemeneur (Europcar), Christian Helmig (Differdange-Losch) and Marco Corti (Colombia) finally managed to escape. Once gone, however, the peloton sat up and the four riders were 5’10” clear at the 65km point.

This advantage was still five minutes with 50km to go, before the RadioShack-Leopard and Katusha teams came forward to close the quartet down. Crossing the finish with just five laps of a 5.5km circuit - which saw the riders tackle the 800 metre climb to the line, with its average gradient of 9.1%, each time - this was down to just 1’10”

As the peloton took on the local circuit it began to split, and Quemeneur attacked the rest of the breakaway riders with three laps to go. The Frenchman was just 16 seconds ahead, however, as Wout Poels (Vacansoleil-DCM) tried to escape the bunch.

Quemeneur was soon caught, as Poels attacked again, and this time the Dutchman was able to get 18 seconds clear. RadioShack-Leopard was not willing to let the stage victory get away, however, and the Luxembourg team closed him down to ten seconds as he took the bell; he was caught shortly afterwards and, as the front of the peloton hit the final climb to the line, Jungels attacked.

The Luxembourg rider was not able to shake off Martens, with Bakelants holding on to the German’s wheel, but Hivert couldn’t follow the acceleration. Jungels took the sprint by more than a bike length, but Martens had won the race.